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Pandemics

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# Past pandemics
I've been reading about pandemics. The method was reading through this Wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics, and miscellaneous sources. The limitations of the method was that this list has a bias towards epidemics in the English-speaking world, that some of their figures were wrong, and that towards the end it tends to consider smallish pandemics. Moreover, there weren't that many times whe
re a disease was introduced to a new population *and* it had a low fatality rate (influenza being the chief example).
I've been reading about pandemics. The method was reading through this Wikipedia list: [List of pandemics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics), and miscellaneous sources. The limitations of the method was that this list has a bias towards epidemics in the English-speaking world, that some of their figures were wrong, and that towards the end it tends to consider smallish pandemics. Moreover, there weren't that many times where a disease was introduced to a new population *and* it had a low fatality rate (influenza being the chief example).
## Some thoughts:
- Most pandemics throughout history had much higher mortality.
@ -10,10 +9,11 @@ re a disease was introduced to a new population *and* it had a low fatality rate
- "Herd immunity" seems to be built over longer periods of time, rather than over the course of a year. Historically, one found out that there was herd immunity within a population because when the pandemic came back a decade hence, fewer and younger people died.
- Modern plagues can be thought as accelerated versions of older plagues; where it once took years from a pandemic to travel from China to Central Europe, it now takes day or weeks.
- Authorities and elites denying the extent of a plague, and this causing more pain and suffering... has been known to happen, and is even common.
- After a pandemic concludes, there might be some political will to do something so that this never happens again. This is relatively short-lived
CSV for the above [here](https://nunosempere.github.io/ea/PastPandemics.csv).
## Some comments from my notes:
## Some quotes from my notes:
"In overcrowded Athens, the disease killed an estimated 25% of the population. The plague returned twice more, in 429 BC and in the winter of 427/426 BC."
@ -23,7 +23,6 @@ CSV for the above [here](https://nunosempere.github.io/ea/PastPandemics.csv).
"These measures [were] enforced with harsh penalties including flogging and death" (about the [1592-1593 Malta plague epidemic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1592%E2%80%931593_Malta_plague_epidemic))
A major outbreak in March 1630 was due to relaxed health measures during the carnival season (about the [1629–1631 Italian plague](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1629%E2%80%931631_Italian_plague))
In Seville, quarantine measures were evaded, ignored, unproposed and/or unenforced. The results were devastating
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In 1918, older adults may have had partial protection caused by exposure to the 1889–1890 flu pandemic, known as the "Russian flu"
![](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1918_spanish_flu_waves.gif)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/1918_spanish_flu_waves.gif)
(Image for the 1918 Spanish Flu)
Another oddity was that the outbreak was widespread in the summer and autumn (in the Northern Hemisphere); influenza is usually worse in winter